538 UPDATE..HRC

[misterhighwasted]

DAVID WASSERMAN 6:48 PM

Clinton is ahead by 15 percent AND her best expected counties (Hamilton, Lake and Marion) haven’t even reported results yet. Blowout on the Dem side?

[BlueMTexpat]

1. It's tightened since then.

But Hillary is still in the lead. Even a tiny win for Hillary would be as good as a blowout, given that Bernie is already so far behind in delegates.

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results

[misterhighwasted]

2. He can't ever recover, even with a close win tonight

But Hill will win Indiana tonite. More SDs for Hillary!!

[displacedtexan]

3. If it's even remotely close, we'll hear that old...

..."See, there's no mandate!!!" crap and the waste of money will continue until June.

[BlueMTexpat]

4. That's the sad thing because

Sanders simply won't come clean with his supporters.

He would have to win tonight by a huge margin even to begin to make a dent in Hillary's lead. That just isn't going to happen. If his supporters just want to keep throwing good money after bad, that's their choice.

If we use the 538 targets as guidelines, Hillary's target is 39/83 and Bernie's is 44/83. If the race stays close, or even if Bernie ekes out a win, he will likely not meet his 538 TGs and will fall even farther behind in delegate totals.

He is literally making a political fool of himself, IMO. He also is burning up goodwill as rapidly as he is burning cash. But that's his right.

[justiceischeap]

5. Could his strategy be to use up as much of his donations as possible

in the primaries so he doesn't have to put much (if any) in the DNC war chest for the General?

[BlueMTexpat]

6. Right now, I find very little

admirable about him, so anything is possible. But

[displacedtexan]

7. After his *cough* speech *cough* to the supers, if it's close...

...he'll say, "See. The country believes I should be the nominee!" Cue the podium bird.

[BlueMTexpat]

9. LOL - he can say what he

wants and can ignore Hillary's results, which still are better than his, all he wants. That won't change the facts.

The facts are - still - that the majority of voters are NOT feeling the Bern. He can only eke out wins in open Democratic primaries and even then, not by much. Yes, he can win caucuses, where his supporters drown out others a la Susan Sarandon. But there are only two open primaries remaining: Puerto Rico and Montana, neither with the BIG delegate numbers he needs and where even if he wins as is very likely in MT at least, Hillary will also continue to pick up delegates.

WVA, CA, NJ and SD are semi-closed. Guam and the Virgin Islands both have closed caucuses. Guam is this weekend and Hillary should do well there, possibly even wipe out any tiny gains Bernie may have earned last night. The VI caucus results will be anyone's guess. Each one already has a SD from the VI per this. http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/VI-D

Right now, the NYTimes is showing Hillary with 37/83 delegates and Bernie with 43/83 based on the IN results, with 98% of the votes counted. Per this, neither has yet achieved 538 target goals. Yet even if Bernie makes or surpasses his, he will not even make a dent in Hillary's pledged delegate lead. It's all over but for Bernie's shouting - and continue to shout he will, I have no doubt.

Now that Ted Cruz has officially pulled out of the GOP race, the media may - finally - begin to do some serious vetting on Bernie: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/03/ted-cruz-suspend-campaign-president-indiana-primary

I love how The Guardian calls Bernie's win in IN a "shock" - it was hardly that when the polls were close and it was an open primary, where at least some Bernie voters were deliberate mischief-makers rather than TBs.